Maarten Heijkamp, 2020

Location: Duinoordschool, Mauritslaan 8, Den Haag

At a time when the whole country was in Lockdown due to corona, some construction projects went ahead nonetheless. The Duinoord School had been working for years to pull the adjacent modernist church building into its own building because it was growing out of its depth. For an appropriate art commission, Maarten Heijkamp was enlisted. He observes nature in detail with his camera obscura, and not only prints his images on photo paper, but hammers it into clay. With an ingenious system, he reproduces razor-sharp details on a large surface. For the Duinoord School, he made a "photograph" of a small Scots pine (Citrus Sylvestrus). From the image he lifted eleven parts and made ceramic reliefs from them. These reliefs were given a place in the stairwell, which connects the old part of the school via two footbridges with the former church area, which has been renovated into an auditorium. The Duinoord School was very happy with the work entitled Growth, which visualizes the cycle from young to old - from root to leaf, without revealing everything at once and leaving room for discovery.